Art & MusicGreek → English
Tritagonist
/traɪˈtæɡənɪst/noun
The third most important character in a drama or story.
The Greek roots
τρίτος
trítos
third
ἀγωνιστής
agōnistḗs
contestant, actor
Literally: “third contestant”
The story of the word
Sophocles added the third actor, and the third actor is the tritagonist. In Athens the word carried a sting: Demosthenes attacked Aeschines by calling him a tritagonist, since third parts meant tyrants and messengers rather than heroes, and Aeschines had genuinely acted before he went into politics. Modern criticism has flattened all that into a ranking of characters.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
protagonistdeuteragonistantagonisttriadagony
In a sentence
The tritagonist gets two scenes and one very good speech.
Casting a company of three meant every extra part fell to the tritagonist.